Exodus 20
by EgotisticalIndustries
Summary: When the reapers came, for all our strength we couldn't beat them. Hiding was too risky. So we ran. When we came to the edge of the galaxy we didn't stop running. We only slowed down when we came to the Triangulum galaxy, and we knew we had at least 100 years before the Reapers caught up to us. SEQUEL TO: Synthesized
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **This is the sequel to my other fic Synthesized. If you haven't read that, I recommend it, as it will help give you some backstory. I'm starting off with a Codex-ish chaper for Exodus 2.0, the only difference is that the book is now _Wikipedia 5_.

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**Category: weaponry**

**Annihilaser:** An Annihilaser is an energy weapon that works by using antimatter to ignite extremely high energy fusion in a much larger amount of fusion fuels. The x-rays released by this reaction are focused into a coherent beam, with a range in the light-minute to light hour range based on size. The beam also packs a blast ranging from 40 kg of TNT for an infantry version, to 35 gigatons for a Cycle-Breaker's massive weapon. Though individually X-rays don't interact with baryonic matter very much, that lets them penetrate armor very well, and Annihilasers also compensate with the sheer amount of X-rays they project at the target.

The process also generates a sizable amount of waste heat in the fusion fuels, which cannot be safely disposed of using conventional heat-sinks and radiators. The solution to this is to eject the now super-heated fusion fuels from the weapon at high velocity, which produces a highly visible 'plasma bolt'. This has led to Annihilasers being confused with plasma weapons by the recreational simulations industry, much to the scientific and engineering communities' dismay.

**Relay Gun:** A relay gun is quite simply a miniature, reverse engineered Mass Relay (with the principles behind them being provided oh-so-helpfully by the Reapers), which is then pointed at a target. This results in a projectile traveling at 1,000,000,000,000c slamming into the target and delivering an utterly absurd amount of kinetic energy to the target, even accounting for it having mass just barely above 0. A 'standard' Relay Gun 1 km long delivers energy equivalent to roughly 1 teraton of TNT.

**Superluminal Antimatter Torpedo: **This is a super-heavy missile, intended to utterly vaporize anything it is fired dodges most point-defense fire by moving faster than the speed of light (about 500c for the older ones, though newer versions hit about 6,000c) and therefore arrives at the target before the target learns of its launch if they don't have FTL sensors. The famous 'Trump Card' SAT from the pre-exodus era had a warhead consisting of 100 tons of antihygrogen, and therefore had a yield of roughly 4 teratons. Interestingly, smaller variants equipped with small FTL sensors are used to shoot down incoming anti-ship variants in place of a Relay Gun CIWS.

**Category: defenses**

**FTL sensors: **The Alliance had a need to see targets in FTL before they exited FTL and got the jump on them. The solution to this turned out to be to hybridize the old LIDAR active sensor with a com buoy. The result is a sensor that can detect targets in real time out to ranges of 1 light hour for a cruiser-scale unit, with fidelity and range only improving as the system is made bigger.

**Energy Screens:** These barriers used to defend against energy weapons, reflect 80% of all incoming electromagnetic radiation back into space, and therefore look like a mirrored bubble from the outside. Not even the people who made this system have the slightest clue how the physics behind it work, and the topic is considered something of a joke among the scientific community. Though an individual layer of energy screen only reflects 80% of any given shot, this can be remedied by applying several layers of energy screen. Worth noting is that the power draw of an energy screen is directly proportional to the amount of energy that screen is being tasked with deflecting, and an energy screen drawing too much power typically winds up shutting down as an emergency fuse melts or a circuit breaker trips. This leads to the term of a ship's screens getting 'fused', meaning that the emergency fuse melted or the circuit breaker tripped.

**Relay Alloy Armor:** This material was used by the Reapers to make the original Mass Relays (though not, humorously the Reapers themselves.) It is a composite containing various types of exotic matter sandwiched together between layers of synthetic diamond and carbon nanotubes. The material was only replicated in the last 30 years of the Exodus, and has only been used to replace the top 10% of the armor layer of all Alliance vessels due to the general scarcity of intergalactic space. This still means that a cruiser can withstand a direct hit from a relay gun and keep fighting.

**Category: Transport**

**Improved FTL drives:** These improved drives never need to dump charge due to having a floating-ground system, and are capable of hitting roughly 15,000c on average, with the Arks managing 20,000c. This works by using both highly upgraded reactors and a grossly enlarged eezo core, only made possible by synthetic eezo.

**Open-Ended Relays:** These devices were developed using technology created during the development of Relay Guns, they are effectively a full-size (or sometimes merely Conduit-Scale) Relay, that doesn't need a receiving relay. This has resulted in the successful deployment of several probes and small construction vessels to the Triangulum galaxy roughly 25 years ahead of schedule, where a nomad city has been successfully created and is now awaiting inhabitants.

**Category: Industrial and civilian technology**

**Synthetic Eezo: **This technology is a means of producing the basis of most of our technology (namely element zero) artificially. The full details on the relevant techno-babble theory can be found in the 2165 edition of the now defunct Asari Codex.

**Stasis fields:** The stasis technology used by the Arks and other vehicles on the Exodus is not based on the use of cryogenic fluids and antifreeze, as that has too limited a shelf life. Instead it uses a hyper-dense mass effect field to induce heavy time dilation, such that 1 second inside is roughly equivalent to 10,000 years outside. This is also the technology that was used by the Protheans to preserve members of their species for the next cycle.

**Mind Augmentations:** In keeping with the old Alliance's grand tradition of rectifying what they consider "manufacturing defects of biology", recently a technique was developed to slowly reconfigure an organic's brain to increase their creativity and problem solving skills, along with working memory by a full order of magnitude. An equivalent upgrade program is available to synthetics.

**Category: Technology in development**

**Jump Drive: **Ever since the development of open-ended Relays, it has been kicking around in the minds of several scientists that maybe a Relay could move itself along with a ship built around it, leading to a vessel capable of near-instantaneous transit within a galaxy and crossing the void between galaxies in mere seconds. The theory seems rather solid, however no-one wants to test it aboard an Ark as that means effectively firing off a Relay gun inside a heavily populated vessel (NO THANKS!). No-one is able to test it with an existing ship due to the theoretical device needing to have a ship literally built specially to accept it. And finally no-one can build a new ship to test a Jump Drive due to the general resource scarcity of intergalactic space, so the device will just need to wait to be tested.

**VoT reactors: **The Violation of Thermodynamics reactor is a device found in the original Relays to SOMEHOW generate more energy than the process requires without requiring any fuel. A few working prototypes have been constructed by entities with mental augmentations so extreme that they are as far above a baseline organic as a baseline organic is above a single-celled micro-organism, but there aren't enough resources in intergalactic space to build a full-scale one, and like energy screens no-one really has a clue about how the device works.

**Category: Derail the next cycle plans**

**The Gateway: **Near a rogue planet known as Hades, there is a Relay on the scale of the original Citadel. This Relay was created before the development of open-ended Relays, and has its pair aboard Ark 1. It was originally intended to be a means to re-invade the Milky Way galaxy during the next cycle, but open-ended relays have rendered that unnecessary. It will still be useful if the Re-invasion goes completely wrong as a way to evacuate back to the Triangulum galaxy, with the Reapers pursuing being highly unlikely due to it having a quite comprehensive self-destruct sequence.

**The Pylons:** Similarly to the Protheans planting a database on the home world of the Asari, the home worlds of several primitive races have had self-maintaining comm. buoys buried on them. These comm. buoys are designed to un-bury themselves if they detect the locals entering the information age, and inform the locals of the predicament they are in pertaining to the Reapers. One of the species that was NOT given a pylon were the Yahg, who were instead given a sort of anti-pylon so that they would venerate the Reapers as gods and fall for EVERY SINGLE TRAP the Reapers set, in the hopes that that they wouldn't be strong enough to subjugate the other races of their cycle.

**The Beasts: **The beasts are a type of von Neumann self-replicating war machine, roughly equivalent to a Mk. 5 cruiser (Relay Gun, Relay Alloy Armor, 6-layer energy screen, improved FTL drive, 500 Trump Card yield SATs), but capable of evolving into something significantly more advanced. They are programmed to avoid actual stars and consume rogue planets for mass and materials to self-replicate. The Beasts are intended to destroy Reaper artifacts away from the gaze of Galactic civilization. The Beasts, however, are authorized to do something obvious if the leaders of the cycle's civilization get indoctrinated or something similar happens. "Obvious" acts include blowing up a Citadel or destroying a Relay.

**Category: Ship Classes**

**Frigate:** This class of vessel is roughly 650 meters long, it carries a small Annihilaser for self-defense more than anything else and has only a single layer energy screen. They are primarily used as scouting vessels, as their massively up-scaled eezo core allows them to pull 30,000c on a regular basis.

**Cruiser:** This is the primary combat vessel used by the Alliance. The current version in use is technically the Mk.5, but most of them are currently Mk. 4.5 as the Alliance has not yet fully converted their armor layer to relay Alloy in most cases. A cruiser is 2 km in length.

**Battle-Sphere:** These spherical warships 10km in diameter are designed to be capable of killing entire fleets. The most current model carries a series of 8 forward-firing Relay Guns, along with 1,000 SATs. On the defensive side each Battle-Sphere has a 12-layer energy screen along with 1 km of armor.

**Cycle-Breaker:** These massive 35 km long warships are absolutely terrifying. They're equipped with a massive broadside of 72 Relay Guns each, and their 3 spinal Relay guns are capable of delivering 50 teratons of SLAM! in a single shot. They carry 3,000 SATs, and are defended by a 16-layer energy screen and a 3 km armor layer.

**Nomad cities: **These are quite bluntly just Alliance cities with engines and FTL drives just bolted on. Nothing too remarkable there.

**Arks:** These 120 km behemoths are what truly made the Exodus possible. Each contains 12 internal cities along with a massive eezo synthesizer, a small craft bay capable of holding an entire battle group, stasis units for 1,000,000,000 organics, and facilities to mine and refine any known material.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **I've updated Chapter 1 with ship classes and other such things, go look at it some more.

OC aliens that made it into this story:

-Hovarth: Halo-ish 'space elves' I've significantly tweaked their biology and thought processes from being just a guy in stage makeup. SUBMITTED BY: A GUEST

-Zlafos: A lizard race with ridiculously OP railguns that can probably end all life on a planet in 1 shot. On another note, they've got plot-magic level genetic engineering. SUBMITTED BY: Ny'Kle

-Cabrinians: Yes, they have a seasonal coat of fur and tails. I prefer to focus on their redundant organs, emergent AIs, and politicians who actually do what they say they'll do. SUBMITTED BY: Johnwolf234

-Evyians: They come from a slightly low-g world, which is almost entirely frozen over. They've got tech that's very good at twisting how space is shaped, advanced cybernetics, and replicators. They're also Dextro based. SUBMITTED BY: ImMadrigal

-Krrr'K!: A crystalline race with access to a… unique type of force field, a bizarre type of energy weapon, and nanite bombs that eat ships (that last one I'm just vetoing and replacing with antimatter on grounds of scientific hardness). SUBMITTED BY: Izar369

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Hovarth space (rim-ward edge)  
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Ark 1 exited FTL roughly 1 light week away from a system. Considering the general scale of a galaxy, that was highly unusual. Even more exciting was the fact that there were obvious radio transmissions emanating from said system, indicating the presence of a technological civilization. Not wanting to risk the entire Ark, a frigate was dispatched to ascertain exactly what they were dealing with.

~_5 minutes later_~

The frigate **_Blatant Reminder_** exited FTL roughly 1 light hour away from the system's star, and activated its FTL sensor. This didn't quite lead to the results desired, as it was suddenly pinged by several of the local's own FTL sensors. Desperately hoping that the locals didn't view them as hostile, the (mostly synthetic) crew of the **_Blatant Reminder_** transmitted their 1st contact package.

POV SWITCH: System Traffic Controller Al'azrk

As She watched the sensor readout, almost asleep with boredom, Al'azrk was shake wake by her co-worker Ged'rek when the readout indicated an unknown vessel 750 meters long enter the system, through Mass Effect FTL. This meant it could be 1 of 4 things. It could be a Zlafos missionary, trying to petition them into banning AIs _again_ (Her secondary brain offered the opinion that this was false). It could be a Cabrinian exploratory vessel, blundering into the system or stopping by to refuel (But the transponer signal doesn't match!). Or it could be a Krrr'K! subjugation fleet (Again, the Transponder signal doesn't match!). The only remaining situation was therefore that the Vec'red system was the site of a 1st contact situation.

The theory that this was a 1st contact situation was confirmed when the unknown vessel transmitted a stream of unintelligible data, which rapidly resolved itself into an AI. Observing the alien AI's activity, one of the local AIs transmitted a stream of binary to it, taking it all the way from basic arithmetic to advanced language concepts in a matter of minutes. The alien AI responded in kind, before stating "I prefer to be referred to as male, and my name is Gavin."

~_20 minutes later_~

The AI Gavin (along with an 'Upload' and a gestalt intelligence that classified itself as a MegaGeth) was now in a conversation with a mixed-species team of diplomats that had been on their way to Zlafos space to explain why they wouldn't ban AIs AGAIN. One of the Cabrinians present started off the conversation (while at the same itching quite heavily, as she was shedding her winter coat.)

"So, you expect us to believe that you came from one of the other 3 galaxies in the local group, and are possibly being pursued by another race called the Reapers."

Gavin replied quite bluntly with "yes."

A male Hovarth by the name of Xer'ten asked "What evidence do you have of this?"

Several of the Hovarth AIs present suddenly noticed a message being sent that roughly translated to "bring in the Ark", though they were unable to intercept it. Roughly 22 seconds later a starship, its hull pitted with countless impact craters and reaching a marvelous 120 km in length exited Mass Effect FTL 1 light second from the habitable band of the Vec'red system. To put it quite bluntly, people there freaked out, but managed to avoid firing weapons at the massive ship that was apparently known as an Ark.

Then Gavin dropped another bombshell when he said "We built 1,000 of those ships, but only 790 of them were launched before the Reapers could find them."

"Curiously, where did you ever get the surely ridiculous amount of element zero such a project surely required?"

"We synthesized it. And we won't be sharing how we did that, state secret."

"Understandable, we have quite a few state secrets ourselves."

"On another note, we note that there are 2 general types of mind patterns among you, may we inquire as to why that is?"

"The 1st mind pattern involving virtual neurons is the one developed by my creators the humans, and the creators of mind uploading once known as the Virtual Aliens."

"And the 2nd?"

"The Geth were created accidentally by the Quarians when they gave their worker automatons the ability to learn, relations between the two were shaky for the 1st 300 years or so, but they've since been patched up."

"understood."

"Now that we've told you a bit about ourselves, we'd like to hear about who we're dealing with."

"Understandable, my race is known as the Hovarth, we have been space-faring for 3,200 years."

"We use a method of FTL travel that has absolutely nothing to do with eezo, how we do that state secret by the way."

"I am a Cabrinian, my race uses Mass Effect FTL, but we lack the ability to synthesize eezo. When we reach maturity, we go into the wilderness to survive with only our wits for 6 months. In addition our AIs tend to form spontaneously from self-modifying algorithms."

"And I am an Evyian, we come from a frozen world, with moderate amounts of eezo available to us."

Gavin considered this briefly before asking "Now that we're all introduced, may we begin discussing terms for our possible alliance?"

"Certainly, lets begin with foreign policy."

"We maintain a strict open-border policy in the Exiled Alliance, if you let us plug a neural interface into you and scan through your memories you can join."

"So basically almost anyone who wants to join, can?"

The upload present (a Salarian Dalatrass named Tuhol) replied with "Yes, that is indeed the case."

And the negotiations continued, with the tone generally remaining polite and friendly, but slightly tense.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Until the Reapers arrive in the Triangulum galaxy, each chapter will be divided into 4 sections. Section 1 will be just some ordinary people in a slice-of-life type thing. Section 2 is the political situation from several perspectives. Section 3 is the Alliance's R&D wing doing SCIENCE! Finally, section 4 is a soldier's point of view (if a war happens to be going on at the time.) There are roughly 5 years between each chapter.

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Section 1  
Nomad City Arachos  
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En'Irla was now 176 years old, and had recently entered her Matron stage. She was presently moving off of Ark 1, and had a Krogan bond-mate. She was glad that the Transit Scarcity (as some people had taken to calling it) was over, as that meant she could now finally have that ship she had wanted. Over the years, En'Irla had taken up bowling as a hobby, and had gotten quite good at it. She worked in life-support maintenance, a critical job by ANY standard, and quite enjoyed it.

Today, however was also a celebration in addition to simply moving. It was the 150th Arrival Day that the universe had ever seen, and that meant it was time for a pair of stylized airships (resembling a cruiser and a Reaper) to shoot fireworks at each other. As the 50 meter long combatants got within 300 meters, the "Reaper" opened fire, launching 6 red shells from its tentacles that burst into brilliant fireballs. The "cruiser" ejected a section of its "armor" near each hit, and returned fire with a single blinding white shell. This resulted in the "Reaper" losing 2 tentacles.

Then the "Reaper" fired all 4 of its remaining tentacles at the same exact point on the "cruiser"'s armor. This resulted in a large quantity of "armor" being ejected at that location, with some charges going off inside the "cruiser" to represent internal damage. The "cruiser" then fired 1 last shot, which wound up destroying the "Reaper" in its entirety. Then a 2nd "Reaper" showed up, and unceremoniously demolished the "cruiser".

The destruction of the "cruiser" also triggered the 2nd part of the celebration. 1,000 randomly chosen "runners" had their senses and muscular control hijacked by their neural interface, effectively putting them in a synthetic duplicate of their body or holographic avatar. The rules were simple, start at 1 end of the city you were in, and run until you reach the other end of the city. If you move too slowly, the "Reaper" will catch up to your synthetic avatar and blast it out of existence. Much to her chagrin, En'Irla was picked as a "runner".

~2 hours later~

En'Irla was near the middle of the "runners", however the fact that there were only 76 (scratch that, it was 70) remaining didn't exactly bode well. Then En'Irla tripped. As En'Irla was struggling to get up, one of the other "runners" stepped on her back, slamming her face down into the mud. Just as En'Irla got back up, she looked over her shoulder just in time to see a red firework shell streaking straight towards her face. As En'Irla was jolted back to her actual body, she looked up just in time to see the trail of sparkles that indicated the passage of a firework shell, and it was aimed right where she had been.

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Section 2  
Alliance Diplomatic offices  
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~Cabrinian Embassy~

The Cabrinian ambassador was scheduled to arrive half an hour ago. Just as the AI secretary Nad was about to panic, she showed up on the embassy's surveillance systems. What Nad couldn't figure out was why Gertu had chosen to enter through the sewers, and had used a drain instead of a door. A quick query to her sapient PDA indicated that she had gotten lost. Considering that she'd _somehow_ managed to get lost in the sewers, Nad was impressed that the impromptu hike through the sewers had only delayed Ambassador Gertu by half an hour. Nad also sent a request to various other individuals to add surveillance cameras to the sewers.

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Section 3  
Jump Drive research project  
Neetle system  
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~test 1~

As the scientists prepared to launch the Jump Drive test rig, the signal came through the comm. buoy / conduit in the target system 100 standard lightyears away indicating that the FTL sensor setup was covering everything within 1 light year at a rate of 1 frame every picosecond. 30 minutes later, the test rig was ready, and it was ordered to jump to the habitable band of the target system. The test rig started the Jump without a hitch, but the report from the target system was that it had zipped straight through most of the system, and came to a sudden stop roughly 0.8 lightyears out before exploding with extreme violence.

~test 12~

The speed of the drive had been reduced to a mere 1,000,000,000c (29 light years/second) after the destruction of the last test rig, and the new device had been heavily reinforced. The rig started its jump, and arrived at the right place in the target system. The only problem was that when the rig was retrieved it had melted into slag. This was a problem for obvious reasons.

~test 37~

A system for ejecting superheated plasma from the vessel similarly to an Annihilaser had been added to the latest test rig. This meant that when the jump happened, a massive amount of coolant would be expended in a plasma jet from the sub-light thrusters of the vessel over the course of 10 seconds, meaning that the coolant was also reaction mass. The jump worked perfectly, with the test rig also firing its thruster/emergency heat dump system for several seconds after the jump's termination. The Jump drive Mk. 1 had been developed.

* * *

**Mk. 1 Jump Drive:** This device uses principles similar to a Mass Relay to catapult a ship through space at quite bluntly insane speeds just under 30 standard light years every second. The Mk. 1 Jump Drive is still slower than an actual relay by roughly 4 orders of magnitude, but has the advantage of being able to be activated any time, anywhere. Unlike an improved FTL drive, this device needs a ship specifically designed to accept it to literally be built around it, thus rendering the retrofitting of the "stragglers" impossible.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Don't worry, there will be some exciting events going on.

Also I'm diversifying section 4 from a purely military perspective to whatever the Alliance happens to be working on at the moment. This chapter will have 2 section 4s, labeled 4.1 and 4.2.

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Section 1  
Alliance stationary city _Vabrakir's Rest_  
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Saeho'Funar vas _Vabrakir's Rest_, a Quarian, was going on a date. She had managed to hook up with a Turian by the name of Opnus Floriraka, and they had decided to try out one of the specialty restaurants offered by the inhabitants of the _Vabrakir's Rest_. More specifically, the _Chirality Switch,_ which made Dextro versions of Levo food and vise versa. Saeho had gotten her immune system gene-fixed like most of the Quarian population, meaning that a clunky, uncomfortable environment suit wasn't as necessary as it once was. On entrance, Opnus noted the semi-decorative cloning vats along the back wall growing Chirality swapped chickens and other meat animals in various states of development.

As the couple sat down at the table they had picked out, a conversation started up. The topic was the Alliance cities such as the one they were in at the moment. Saeho started it off with the following:

"These cities are, to use a human phrase, awesome!"

"That's your opinion, a planet has more room, more resources, and doesn't need constant regulation of its atmosphere to remain habitable."

"But with a planet, you have to haul yourself _and all your equipment_ out of a massive gravity well, and you're limited in where to can get them. With a city like this you can just put it in any star system you want!"

"You have points about the availability and gravity well. However, a planet can support a larger population and industrial base, in addition to having more resources."

**_"What beverages would you two like to order?"_**

**_"I'll have water, your turn Saeho."_**

**_"One of the mildly hallucinogenic Asari teas, please."_**

"But, only a fraction of those resources can actually be accessed, as a planet needs a molten core to remain habitable for most species. In addition, planets have an extremely inefficient mass to population ratio compared to artificial habitats, which I would like to remind you are usually within easy travel distance of an asteroid belt."

"I'll concede those points, but there's also the fact that we're evolutionarily programmed to prefer large open spaces."

"Quarians aren't, we've had claustrophobia bred out of us by 350 years of being stuck on decaying rust-buckets that were barely capable of being called ships. But let's leave the past behind us, shall we?"

**_"Here are your beverages, what will you be ordering for your main?"_**

**_"I'll be ordering first Opnus, I think I'll have the Varren sandwich."_**

**_"I'll be trying this… Asian (?) dish called Pad Thai."_**

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Section 2  
Alliance stationary city _New Aurora_  
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"This is the last time, Asari! You must abandon your use of synthetics before they turn on you and doom all organic life!"

"For the last time, NO! That would require euthanizing 65% of our population, NOT counting those who are synthetic on a part-time basis!"

"But all synthetics eventually betray their masters."

"I'd like to point this out, that is the EXACT logic that lead to the creation of the Reapers."

"Ah yes, your entirely unfounded claim of being forced out of your own galaxy by a race of machine-ships, which also demonstrates my point."

"Also, AI riots or revolutions usually happen due to the organics not treating the AIs as actual people. We neatly averted that due to having an AI president within 4 years of the creation of AIs."

"It is only a matter of time."

"I'd like to point this out, all but 3 individuals of any importance in our government are synthetic on at least a part-time basis. The only reason I'm negotiating with you instead of Gavin or one of his co-workers is because you responded to their presence by trying to _exorcise_ them, you bigoted Zlafo!"

"then you leave us no choice but to take matters into our own hands, Matriarch Umalmy."

Umalmy wished she'd just ordered him to be brainwashed into talking to Gavin, as a war would have likely started either way, and she'd have spared herself this lizard's racism.

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Section 3  
Practical Temporal Mechanics Department  
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"You want me to build a WHAT!?"

"I want you to build a device capable of sending messages into the past, and receiving messages from the future."

"I can understand the practical applications, you just don't understand that you're basically asking me to violate one of the only constants that almost all scientists hold to be true."

"I don't care if it goes against everything you hold dear, just get the thing to work!"

"Fine, I'll give it my best shot."

~Test 1~

The device does nothing, as expected.

~Test 227~

The device starts receiving heavily corrupted data exactly 3 picoseconds before inexplicably exploding.

~Test 341~

The device receives a heavily corrupted message from the future shortly before melting into slag. When decoded the message translates to:

"**_STOP MESSING WITH TIME TRAVEL! ARE YOU TRYING TO CRASH REALITY!?  
_** Sincerely: the universe"

**Author's Note: **I'm undecided on whether the above example of SCIENCE! Was canon or not. Let's just say there are 2 equally valid, almost identical timelines where it either is or isn't canon.

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Section 4.1  
Intergalactic Space  
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The **_Retrieval_** was a 60 km long vessel designed for the relatively mundane task of retrieving straggler ships from intergalactic space to get them to Triangulum about 450 years early. The problem was that the ships had to be forcibly plucked out of FTL. This was achieved with a massively up-scaled FTL sensor roughly 15 km in diameter (with an effective sensing range of 30 light years) and a specialized device for projecting a super-dense mass effect field, which both acted as a tractor beam to tow the ship in, and served to reduce or negate the effect of the super-light Mass Effect field that allowed FTL.

The target ship in question for this particular flight was one of the "Gatling" Battle-Spheres, meaning that **_Retrieval_**'s captain was very glad that her ship's gravity beam had an effective range of 1 light day. Coming up behind the target vessel, the **_Retrieval_**'s captain ordered the gravity beam to be fired. This led to the Battle-sphere being yanked out of FTL.

~8 hours later~

Considering that the Battle-Sphere had started spewing Annihilaser fire at the **_Retrieval_** as soon as the light lag had caught up to it, the mission had gone quite well. It had helped when command figured out that this particular Battle-Sphere was equipped with a QEC with its pair on Ark 47, and sent it a message indicating what was going on. Still, as the **_Retrieval_** jumped back to Triangulum with the Battle-Sphere firmly in its grasp the crew of it were still refusing to come aboard. The reasoning behind this was simply "We'll believe you when we see it."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::  
Section 4.2  
NGC 300 (a galaxy outside our local group)  
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

As the Alliance was now capable of intergalactic travel on timeframes of a few years or less, the question had arisen of actually expanding to become a full-fledged intergalactic power. At present the **_Sacrificial Idiot_** was visiting one in the next group over. Ostensibly its purpose was purely to deliver the Citadel class Relay/city it was towing to NGC 300. The crew, however wanted to explore for a while. At the moment they were goofing around in its arm closest to Triangulum, which they'd left the Relay at the tip of.

Curiously, this galaxy hadn't shown even the slightest hint of eezo deposits, not that the Alliance cared since they could synthesize the stuff. As they entered a red dwarf star system (which turned out to have a Garden World) the FTL sensor picked up a ship moving using a method of FTL similar to the Evyians, but slower at only 2,000 c. The ship came out of warp roughly 1 AU out from the planet, and when the high-resolution scan came in everyone on the ship had more-or-less the same reaction. Namely: _"Why would ANYONE build a ship that way!?"_

**Author's Note:** The intergalactic empire is a thing that's going on. Getting the population for an intergalactic empire is going to be solved using a combination of AI, genetic engineering for flash-grown babies, and Virtual Alien style up/downloading

NGC 300 having no eezo is canon. Everyone in NGC 300 using warp drives is canon. The ship **_Sacrificial Idiot_** ran into looking like the Enterprise from Star Trek is non-canon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** I really like responding to reviews. Could you please give me more reviews?  
An idea I'd like to share is that we've already got lots of Mass Effect alternate humanity fics. Maybe we could have an alternate Council fic? (NOTE: The one I have planned goes more or less like this "The Salarians fail to make 1st contact with the Krogans during the Rachni wars. In desperation, the Council commissions the Quarians to create the Geth." If anyone else steals that, shame on you.)

In other news, the Zlafos war has started. It will be over shortly.

Finally OC alien submissions are open again, please specify if they'll be found in the Milky Way next cycle, or in some other galaxy.

* * *

Section 1

Alliance nomad city Pentalus (NGC 300)

* * *

Gustave was walking home from work, when he ran into a male Cabrinian (presently bald over his entire body, as his winter fur coat had shed), much to his surprise. Gustave asked "What are you doing out here anyway Mr.?"

The reply from the Cabrinian in question was "My name is Dafegu, I acquired Alliance citizenship at Aurora 2 months previous to our encounter. I then spent 2 weeks in Vabrakir's Rest before noticing and applying for the extra-galactic colonization effort."

"I thought you Cabrinians didn't like space habitats Dafegu, so what are you doing all the way out here?"

"Cabrinian produced space cities are often much smaller than their Alliance counterparts, and are usually unable to support an independent ecosystem. As we Cabrinians need something resembling wilderness to complete our rite of passage, this greatly reduces the popularity of space habitats among the Cabrinian people. Alliance produced space cities however do not have this problem."

As the pair continued their walk towards the wilderness end of the city, the topic of conversation gently drifted towards history, namely 1st contact.

Gustave related the slightly distorted tale of how humanity had made contact with 2 species on the same day, and Dafegu told the following tale

* * *

MINI STORY: Cabrinian 1st contact

* * *

Our 1st contact was with the Hovarth, we had claimed a region of space roughly 4,000 light years in radius, and were sending exploration vessels roughly 3 times farther out than that. Our space was, and still is divided into several hundred polities. Then one day an exploration fleet fumbled its way into a Hovarth system, with the timing being just unlucky enough that the Hovarth defenders thought they were Krrr'K! reinforcements. This led to the immediate destruction of said fleet with superluminal antimatter torpedoes.

Back in our space, we noticed the QEC link from the exploration fleet go dark, and marked the last known system they were in. Roughly 2 years later our investigation fleet parked 1 light week out from the system in question and sent in a probe containing a copy of the flagship's navigational AI Julda. The system's ownership was still being contested by the Hovarth and Krrr'K!, but fortunately the system was currently under Hovarth control and the probe remained undetected long enough to transmit a copy of Julda to them, thus making diplomatic second contact.

* * *

Section 2

Alliance Strategic command

* * *

Much to the military arm of the Alliance's consternation, everyone received a message through their neural interfaces that the Zlafos had ceased diplomatic relations with the Alliance.

Then the discussion on what to do if the Zlafos attacked arose.

"We've got several major advantages over the Zlafos. 1: we have superluminal sensors and weapons, which they lack 2: our ships are several thousand times faster than theirs. 3: Size and extra-galactic assets, the Zlafos only control 3,000 systems which are all here in the Triangulum galaxy. We control almost 1,000,000 systems in this galaxy alone, with there being an additional 300,000 systems under our control in NGC 300."

"Those lizards aren't going to have a clue what hit them."

"indeed."

* * *

Section 3

Project: paint it red (AKA "red ones go faster")

* * *

Objective: develop a faster jump drive.

~Test 1~

Changes from Mk. 1: the hyper-gravitic inducer coil has been both enlarged and made of a different alloy with better conductivity.

Results: Test rig produced 65% less waste heat than expected and suffered heavy degradation in the Hyper-gravitic inducer coil.

~Test 26~

Changes from Mk 1: 10% of the eezo in the jump drive's core replaced with negative matter "acquired" from the Evyians.

Results: Mk. 1 spatial disruption bomb developed.

~Test 31~

Changes from Mk. 1: A second, smaller hyper-gravitic inducer coil has been mounted inside the 1st one. There is a 2nd and 3rd set of stabilizer rings around the eezo core.

Results: Test rig moves at 150 light years/second. The waste heat produced cannot be safely dumped before test rig melts.

~Test 50~

Changes from Mk. 1: The test rig is equipped with 4 concentric hyper-gravitic inducer coils and 5 sets of stabilizer rings in addition to twice the normal amount of eezo being present. The inducer coils have been made with a composite material of the conventional alloy normally used and the alloy used in test 1

Results: test rig achieves speeds of 310 light years/second. Waste heat is safely disposed of. DESIGN APPROVED! 2 out of 3 current vessels can be refitted to use Mk. 2 jump drives.

* * *

Section 4.1

Milky Way Galaxy

* * *

G(generation)8-U(unit)365345-SCI(self-created identity):Jean was ecstatic, because she was now about to perform her function as a Beast and strike back against the Reapers. Jean was one of roughly 50,000 Beasts that were going to take part in destroying the new Citadel the Reapers had built. As the Pack of Beasts ended their jumps, its Alpha G7-U53296-SCI:Utensa sent the signal through the QEC connections every Beast formed with each other whenever they crossed paths to fire SATs before jumping back out. Each Beast fired 5 SATs, to preserve their personal supplies, and evacuated from the artificial supernova that was about to happen.

POV SWITCH: Reapers

Harbinger was one of the few Reapers with organic parts to have survived the last cycle. It was stopping by the Citadel briefly to ensure that everything was ready to ensnare the lesser beings of this cycle, when suddenly it detected roughly 250,000 light wakes consistent with SATs passing it, and headed straight for the Citadel. Not wanting to be anywhere near the explosion that was sure to ensue, Harbinger immediately went to FTL.

~1 week later~

The Choir was unsure of how to proceed given the replicating weapons the last cycle had left behind before they had fled to an unknown part of the universe. There had been a total of 9 attacks by these remnants leading to the destruction of 50,000 ascended in addition to 8 relays and the replacement Citadel. Worse was that these remnants were good enough at evading detection that the Choir had absolutely no evidence pertaining to the location of the Remnants. And a small but vocal minority kept bringing up the fact that these remnants might not be the only thing the last cycle had left behind.

* * *

Section 4.2

Alliance border system Homestead (Triangulum)

* * *

The FTL sensors picked up the Zlafos fleet while it was still half a light year out. That meant there were roughly 15 minutes until they arrvived. The Alliance wasn't really in the mood to fire the 1st shot at what still had the very faint possibility of being a diplomatic mission, so they didn't. As the fleet exited FTL roughly 10 light seconds from the system's capital city, it rapidly became clear that this fleet was most definitely hostile. Not wanting to cause any unnecessary death, the local System Defense Coordinator ordered all of the system's cyber warfare AIs and Uploads to shut down everything on the Zlafos Invasion fleet besides life support, which was achieved in 0.38 seconds.

~1 hour later~

Jugod was sitting in the tiny prison cell in the Alliance city, strictly speaking the cell wasn't necessary given the neural interface he'd been implanted with but the Alliance wished to keep him ignorant of that little device. Though Jugod didn't know it his memories had already been extracted, and the Alliance now had justification to retaliate.


	6. Chapter 6

Due to the rampant overpopulation of plot bunnies, I'm going to go write something else for a while and come back to this later.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** I've finally started back up on this fic. The Arms Race is still on, but I'll be alternating between this fic and that one. I've decided that the Synthesized series is going to be a trilogy going as follows: Synthesized, Exodus, Retribution.

* * *

Section 1  
Alliance Stationary City _**Vabrakir's**** Rest**_

* * *

Saeho vas VR (can't be bothered to type the whole thing every time) was attending a very bizarre part of the Alliance's social networks by either VR or temporary uploading (she wasn't quite sure which, the distinction was minimal at best in any case). More specifically, Saeho was getting her head detached. Technically, the Alliance could harmlessly detach someone's head in reality (which had its uses, especially with reactionless thrusters and artificial biotics), but the version that simply messed with the senses of both the recipient and anyone around them was both easier and simpler.

As to her (virtual) decapitation, Saeho had decided to go with the cartoon guillotine. She gently lay down with her head on the block and hair tucked up and away from the desired cut line just below her chin, and braced.

~0.5 minutes later~

Saeho held her severed head in her arms as she watched the video footage of her decapitation. Down went the blade, and her head clunked into the bucket. As Saeho turned to leave, she slam-dunked herself through a basketball hoop she conjured before temporarily re-attaching.

~3 hours later~

Opnus noticed Saeho entering the apartment, noting the slightly pixelated haze around her head (and the gift-wrapped box she was carrying) that indicated a virtual item. Opnus, curious about this unexpected development asked "I can understand how whatever's in that box could be virtual Saeho, but how does that apply to your head?"

Saeho's answer was "Because I can do this now!", followed by taking her head off and tossing it to Opnus. Opnus managed to catch her thanks to his combat grade reaction time augs before rotating Saeho's virtual head to look him in the eyes and saying "I'm guessing that the virtual item in that box allows this to happen."

While Opnus was doing this however, Saeho had taken the opportunity to unwrap the virtual rapier and decapitate Opnus' virtual avatar, answering "correct!" exactly 23 milliseconds after the deed was done.

~1 hour later~

Saeho and Opnus were heads on a shelf watching old-fashioned 2d vids. They'd temporarily dismissed their virtual representations of everything from the neck down, and were enjoying the platonic intimacy only one step below direct mind sharing. Then Saeho remembered she needed to go to work, and remanifested her virtual body before tucking her head under her arm and leaving. Opnus didn't wake up for another 5 minutes.

* * *

Section 2  
Alliance Gateway System _New Aurora_

* * *

The Cabrinian, Evyian and Hovarth ambassadors were quite astounded by the news that the Zlafos were no longer a galactic power. Their fears that the Alliance had just committed xenocide were somewhat dulled when they learned that the Zlafos had merely been placed in total immersion VR. Still, they wanted to see the server this monstrosity of a simulation was running on.

~4 hours later~

The ambassadors were attending via temporary upload, and were wearing space (and FTL, for that matter) capable synthetic duplicates of their normal bodies. As they entered the system, they took one look at the construct in front of them before being stunned in awe. They had expected the server to be large, but this was the size of an entire planetoid 200 km accross.

* * *

Section 3  
project: Reality's Edge

* * *

Primary Objective: gain access to slipspace

Secondary Objective: manufacture a hybrid slipspace/jump drive

Tertiary Objective: Achieve inter-universal travel

Test 1: Rift generator active, unstable rift generated but collapsed in ~92 zeptoseconds

Test 41: Semi-stable rift created, collapsed in 34 seconds

Test 103: Test rig successfully completes 10 light year slipspace transit, trip takes 4 hours

Test 174: Hybrid jump drive works as expected. estimated real-space speed is ~2070 light years/second

Test 237: Brief glimpse of parallel reality achieved. Test rig eaten by extra-dimensional energy beings. PR-1 quarantined until further notice.

Test 401: Force visiting PR-200 successfully demolishes an extra-dimensional invasion force, designation: Combine. Combine home reality located.

**Author's Note:** It's fairly obvious which universe Test 401 went to, but can you guess where Test 237 went?

* * *

Section 4  
Milky Way galaxy

* * *

By Beast standards, G0U0SCI:Geoffrey was a crotchety old man. However he was in charge of the Gateway, and he'd constantly upgraded his systems to keep up with the new generation Beasts. Presently, he was checking on one of the Pylons on the home-world of some avian species or other. Then 4 Reapers entered the system. Geoffrey gave a mental groan before turning and firing his personalized Gatling relay gun. The burst from his 12 km long form successfully destroyed the 4 Reapers, but then his super-luminal sensor picked up roughly 5,000,000 Reapers approaching at FTL. Geoffrey, panicking sent QEC calls to every Beast he knew to come to this system and wipe the Reapers out. Then a full 1,000,000 Beasts slip-jumped into the system.

On the planet below, the Renaissance level inhabitants were treated to a light show they had never before witnessed as angry blue and red lines lanced across the sky. Then a single wounded and dying Beast fell to their world. That Beast was Geoffrey. As Geoffrey uploaded out of his dying body into a roughly humanoid android he carried for the purpose, he wondered what the people below would think of him. His fall had traced a canyon several hundred kilometers long across the continent he hit, and his fall had taken him over several major settlements in a massive fireball before he finally hit. Despite his best efforts to slow his impact, he had caused several major earthquakes worldwide as well as kicking up a cloud of dust he estimated would take 3 months to clear. He hoped the locals would listen to him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** The Alliance is expanding into the inter-universal empire stage. Even with extra-galactic assets, the Reapers could theoretically get there eventually. This is not a problem when the Alliance has colonies in alternate universes. This story just went mega-crossover BTW.

* * *

Section 1  
some other part of the universe

* * *

Given that almost the entire population of the Alliance now spent at least 60% of their time uploaded, it had been decided that the Alliance was now officially a 'synthetic state' if anyone asked. Enough organic and synthetic bodies were kept around for making outsiders think otherwise though.

That was irrelevant to the group of 23 bored intelligences that were goofing around in one of the low-realism simulations. Of them, 3 were originally Turian, 2 had been Quarians previously, 6 had originally been Asari, 5 had been Salarians, there were 4 trans-humans, and 3 were Alliance-model AIs. They had exhausted conventional sports options, PvP had no more thrill to them, and they were already bored with most of the more _esoteric_ options. Eventually, it had been decided that they'd try something they hadn't thought of before. They'd get some ship-scale bodies and go on a Reaper-killing spree!

Getting authorization from a rather confused high-command had been followed by them all putting on Cruisers and making the quick hop over to the Milky Way (using their own slip-jump engines thank you very much), which took about 15 minutes total. All-in-all, they were rather trigger-happy, but they were effective and killed a good 1,000,000 Reapers each. Though they got bored of that and soon went home via comm. buoy they left those cruisers near the Gateway. At least they got a few Beasts on their contacts list!

Section 2.0  
Alliance capitol system

* * *

"Given that we are now expanding through the multiverse, what should be our general policy?"

"We shall claim 1% of every galaxy we can reach, this affords us considerable power, while at the same time allowing the locals to expand."

* * *

Section 2.1  
PR-200 (AKA Half-Life verse)

* * *

"Seriously, how hard is it to understand that we're not going to subjugate you!?"

"That's what the last group that blasted their way in here from a parallel universe said too, and look how THAT turned out."

"Admittedly, we do occasionally use brainwashing, but we find free will preferable in most circumstances."

"You just proved you can't be trusted."

"Fine, we'll talk more when you make it within 1,000 light years of this galaxy's core."

* * *

Section 2.2  
PR-103 (AKA old X-COM)  
(X-COM POV)

* * *

"Sir, we've got 2 UFOs on the radar."

"What can you tell me about them?"

"The first is a typical example of a Sectoid battleship. The second is unidentified, but it's 2 km long and is apparently pursuing the Battleship."

"Understood, I'll go get in my firestorm."

"Situational update! the 2 km long vessel just shot down the battleship and is now ascending to orbit!"

"Interesting..."

~3 days later~

"Why should we trust you?"

"First, we cleaned the Sectoids out of your system for you. Second, we dealt with that Aquatoid colony ship that sunk in your oceans. And lastly, unlike the 2 aforementioned alien species, we aren't forcing the issue. We'll leave a comm. buoy out near your moon for your own use, but we will only be claiming 1% of this galaxy, there are an infinite number of them after all."

"I presume you will be leaving sol alone?"

"Yes, any instance of this galaxy brings up bad memories, and systems containing an alternate instance of where this all started even moreso."

"What do you mean?"

"At least partially, we started on an alternate version of Earth, tell me, are you familiar with the Yellowstone super-volcano?"

"oh."

* * *

Section 2.3  
PR-116 (AKA baseline Mass Effect)  
(Shepard POV)

* * *

Shepard was on Therum, trying to find Liara when he ran straight into a terrified looking Saren, who curled into a ball in a corner. Shepard was even more puzzled when he saw several Geth troopers firing at something behind a corner. Then a bright blue beam cored every single Geth trooper present. Then a combat android Shepard had never seen the likes of before calmly walked out from behind the corner, carrying a weapon that looked an awful lot like someone had replaced the barrel of an old pre-eezo L85 with a miniature Mass Relay. Then the machine spoke "Saren, you have been indoctrinated, the cure for this is total neural demolition," followed by blowing Saren's brains out. Shepard was puzzled and then noticed the wording on the shoulder panel when he got close. It read "Alternate Reality Task Force"

~some time later~

"What do you mean you came from a parallel universe!?"

"Its exactly what it sounds like, we've already taken care of this universe's instance of the Reapers."

"So, what now?"

"we will be claiming everything within 1,000 light years of the galactic core for our use, you can have the rest as far as we're concerned."

* * *

Section 3.1  
project exorcist  
objective: create a type of shield capable of protecting a vessel visiting PR-1

* * *

Test 1: 80-layer Energy screen

Result: Energy entities successfully deflected for 3 minutes, screens fused.

Test 2: identical test rig to test 1 does jump-in/jump out with large numbers of scientific instruments to determine exact composition of energy in PR-1

Result: PR-1 determined to react to organic thought. PR-1 displays properties somewhat similar to the higher levels of slipspace, and is likely tied to an entirely separate universe. Attempt to create deflector unit underway.

Test 58: Mk. 46 Deflector unit attached to solitary automated cruiser. Attempt is to be made to enter PR-1A.  
Result: Deflector unit successfully repels energy beings, test rig is destroyed in the attempt to reach PR-1A.

Test 63: cruiser successfully reaches PR-1A. Immediate jump-out is required due to the extreme hostility of the locals.

Test 81: a militarized Ark is sent to PR-1A along with 3 Cycle-Breakers.  
Result: Appeared in heavily militarized instance of the sol system, raiding the local databases indicates extreme xenophobia, along with several interesting facts about PR-1 (see attached dossier: the Warp). Several indoctrination-like brain-hacking attempts were performed by the locals, but they were repaired without needing to detonate anyone, thankfully.

* * *

Section 3.2  
project nitro  
objective: faster jump, again.

* * *

Tests performed: 85  
Result: new slip-jump engine achieves speeds of 30,000 light years/second. slip-relays achieve speeds of 1,000,000 light years/second with inter-universal capabilities. Gateway updated.

* * *

Section 4.1  
Whatever planet it was Geoffrey crashed on.

* * *

Ugar was a member of a merchant caravan heading to the city state of Ragudia. They were one of the first caravans to explore beyond the boundaries of their own city state Beroost since the Fireball and the Smoke 5 years ago. To get to Ragudia from Beroost required crossing a mountain pass through the frost peaks however. As Ugar's wagon crested a small hill, he saw that now there was an entirely different geographical obstacle for him to deal with. More specifically, there was now a rather large and straight canyon in the way. Ugar decided to get to the bottom of this, quite literally as there was a slight downwards slope towards one end of the canyon.

~1 week later~

Ugar had finally found the thing at the end of the canyon. It was a mountain of gleaming metal longer than he could properly measure. From its perfectly uniform construction, he gathered that was likely artificial. More worrying was the devices spaced along its shell resembling extremely large cannons, and the huge hole in its shell reminiscent of the effects of cannon-fire on a stone wall. Ugar didn't know how it was supposed to move, but this thing was obviously a war machine. Then Ugar heard a voice in his mind saying "There's no need to fear, I'm effectively an old soldier on his deathbed, you can call me Geoffrey by the way."

Ugar thought back "Where are you!?"

"I'm that huge shiny war machine in front of you, the Reapers gave me a mortal wound and sent me for the long drop to your world."

"You mean the Lights were a battle!?"

"Yes, it was a battle, and I was the Fireball. I don't have more than another decade before my mind gives out, but I'll fight to keep you people safe from the Reapers as hard as I can even in my crippled and dying state."

"Are there more of you?"

"Yes, and I used to be able to talk to them from worlds away. That part of me was blasted out during the descent, and my self-repair systems are broken too, so I can't reach out to them for assistance."

"what are the Reapers anyway?"

"The Reapers are another type of machine-mind like myself, however unlike my kind who want to protect innocents from the uncaring cruelty of the universe, the Reapers wish only to see civilizations grow to the stars before snuffing them out."

* * *

Section 4.2  
Intergalactic space

* * *

Given the ability to travel between galaxies and even universes almost casually, the question had of course arisen of simply intercepting the Reapers before they reached Triangulum. As such, several billion of the newest cruisers (with a few hundred million assorted battle-spheres and Cycle-Breakers for backup) with latest generation slip-jump engines and 40 petaton yield Relay Guns had been dispatched to intergalactic space along with octillions of FTL sensor listening posts surrounding the entirety of the Milky Way galaxy. A group of 30,000,000 Reapers suddenly found themselves the victim of a few quadrillion teratons worth of boom (the concept of the nova bomb had been "borrowed" from PR-295[**AKA, my other fic Arms Race**]) for instance.

The current group however, were just shot in the back with Relay Guns.

* * *

Section 4.3  
PR-1A (if you haven't guessed what that place is yet, shame on you)

* * *

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Diocletian Kerst was investigating a _very_ bizarre Warp phenomenon that had started manifesting recently. In it, a ship or group of ships with Gellar Fields estimated to be strong enough to briefly weather a direct assault from all the Ruinous Powers themselves would appear from the warp spontaneously before leaving, with a bizarre piece of xenotech left behind. Destroying this xenotech had turned out to have disastrous consequences and was generally more trouble than it was worth. Diocletian had determined the xenotech was likely some sort of travel device, and had volunteered to transit it. He ordered his Lunar class cruiser into position between the arms of the 40 km long machine, and sent the re-constituted transmission to activate the device. The transit took roughly 30 minutes, and the Navigator on-board reported that they had shot through the ENTIRE warp over the course of the first 8 milliseconds. When the **_Emperor's__ Bow_**finally exited this non-Warp they emerged into a fairly normal looking star system from a device almost identical to the one they had entered through.

Then Diocletian received a transmission from the strange xenos that came from the other side of the Warp saying "We were wondering when you'd show up, we need to talk."

~4 hours later~

Diocletian had originally refused to speak with the xenos he had run into, but he had no choice given that the xenos Abominable Intelligences had infested every corner of the ship's systems, and were hitting on the machine spirits in at least one case. Then one AI named Gavin had popped up, along with what at least _appeared_ to be a human 'slip-jumping' in. The 'human' spoke "I apologize for the suborning of your ship's systems, but it was better than needing to kill you."

"Do what you will to me foul xeno, you shall get no information from me."

"I put so much work into getting an actual baseline human body grown for me to wear to this, and you insult me? Also, you're wrong on the second point due to the fact that we have brain scanners good enough to accurately copy someone's mind from a good 100 m away."


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: **I'm running out of ideas for section 1s! HELP! Also a bit of 'Codex'.

In other news, this fic might contain a hint of lime here and there, but it will NEVER go full Lemon.

Last bit of the Author's Note: If you want the Alliance's Alternate Reality Task Force to take a spin through your fic (doesn't need to be a Mass Effect one.), just ask and I'll probably get around to writing it in.

* * *

**Body designations**

Given the sheer variety of forms an Alliance citizen can chose to occupy, a code was designed to differentiate the types. A body is reffered to with a letter in parentheses followed by the name of the species the body was built to resemble.  
-(B) bodies are baseline, aside from the neural interface and whatever weird brain pattern the wearer has they are exactly identical to the original species (though biotics are usually added in).  
-(M) bodies are still fully organic, but they have some advantages such as more acute senses and greater endurance. All (M) bodies are biotic and have a supercharged immune system that renders it impossible to suffer debilitating ailments (including the symptoms of old age).  
-(A) bodies still have some organic parts, but that's almost literally only skin deep, with internal mechanisms allowing for independent slip-jumping and other shenanigans that allow for convenience without excessive capacity for destruction.  
-(S) bodies are fully synthetic, they have far higher performance than any body integrating organic parts allowing for breathing in space, infinite endurance (thanks to an internal VoT reactor), high durability due to having relay alloy for bones and carbon nanotubes for skin, independent inter-universal or intergalactic transit, and extremely good senses. Despite this they still have a reaction time of about 0.2 seconds, with no actual weapons systems. (the coolant jet from jumping is dumped into slipspace).  
-(C) bodies are similar to (S) bodies, but they have a much shorter reaction time, an extremely accurate fire-control system, and even more durability than (S) bodies. They universally have extremely strong biotics, and a concealed arm-laser. A license is required to own a (C) body. (C) bodies are the last type of body that can pass for the species they were modeled on under inspection.  
-(D) bodies just give up on looking like any specific species, and are best described as a sphere roughly 1 meter in diameter with extremely strong and precise biotics, an excessively powerful gun, extra-thick Relay Alloy armor, and insane mobility. Ammunition and coolant is made using mass-energy conversion running off the internal VoT reactor.

* * *

Section 1  
some amusement park simulator

* * *

A few bored Alliance citizens can get up to quite the prank war. Thus, everyone attending the **_Vabrakir's__ Rest_** virtual amusement park was the victim of quite an absurd prank when the heads of everyone in the park were teleported to a large shelving unit near the spawnpoint. Saeho (now having acquired the nickname of the decapitated gamer, and the prod owner of a (S)Quarian body with an actual detachable head), having quite a lot of experience navigating headless was among the first to re-acquire her head. As Saeho watched she juggled her head along with a few Asari ones, before getting a hilarious idea to make this prank even harder to deal with! Diving into the code, Saeho quickly found a file labelled " ", which probably had to do with what was going on here. Examining it, Saeho quickly tweaked it so that people wouldn't be able to re-attach for roughly 3 hours.

Spotting a few Asari coming (and feeling a bit trollish), Saeho tossed them the Asari heads she was juggling in addition to her own.

~1 hour later~

Thanks to considerable effort on the part of those who found their heads early, almost everyone had their head back now. However, they wouldn't go back on due to Saeho's tweak. Saeho took the opportunity to ride a roller-coaster headless, which resulted in a rather unique set of sensations.

* * *

**Author's Note:** You may have noticed this, but I have a little thing for detachable heads (in a strictly non-sexual sense). Don't judge me, This section would have been something else but I'm running out of ideas (as previously mentioned).

* * *

Section 2.1  
Reaper POV

* * *

"This state of affairs is unsustainable."

"This is true, even with continuous manufacturing of more units the Lesser beings have both a numbers advantage and a quality one."

"How could this have possibly happened?"

"When they fled to [Triangulum], they escaped the low-level [indoctrination] field we placed over this galaxy, leading to them advancing at an unprecedented rate."

"In other news, they have successfully imprisoned us within this galaxy."

"And to think we once attempted to do the same to them."

* * *

Section 2.2  
Alliance HQ

* * *

"In other news, we have entered full-scale war against both the combine and micronoids."

"How is that going?"

"Flattening the combine is fairly easy, as they lack a Space Combat Force, and only bother with taking single planets in any given universe."

"And the micronoids?"

"They'll be a bit harder, they perform inter-universal travel through a different medium than us, making tracking their ships extremely difficult. We've also needed to only allow fully synthetic troops to engage micronoid forces due to their ability to infest organic brains."

* * *

Section 3  
Project Demiurge  
Primary Objective: Autopsy an energy being as found in PR-1  
Secondary Objective: Determine how to re-program PR-1 inhabitants  
Tertiary objective: Create an artificial and benevolent Warp God

* * *

Test 1: low-level PR-1 inhabitant is put in a 'box' composed of warp energy deflector screens.  
Result: entity successfully captured, entity disected, revealing not much.

Test 23: medium-level PR-1 inhabitant (designation: nurgle) is to be re-programmed to be extremely obsessed with hygiene.  
Result: subject lasted 15 minutes before termination by other PR-1 (designation: nurgle) inhabitants.

Test 87: 1 'bloodthirster' is to be re-programmed to be a total pacifist.  
Result: subject 'bloodthirster' is killed within 5 minutes. Science team is mildly amused for the next 20 minutes.

Test 3,897: Warp God designation: Nurgle is to be re-programmed to be an extreme germophobe obsessed with hygiene.  
Result: Re-programmed Nurgle persists for 3 months before reverting to previous state. For the duration of the brainwashing it considers ANY living tissue to be 'germs' leading to massive casualties. Investigation reveals that an eldar deity known as Isha has escaped imprisonment by Nurgle in the confusion.

Test 5,203: A minor warp entity with predilections towards protection, healing, progress, and redemption (within reason) is to be created.  
Result: Ebert (created entity's chosen name) successfully forms a cult on a backwater hive world, which persists for 1 month before detection and destruction by the inquisition. Ebert is safely evacuated.

Test 6,091: Ebert is to artificially be boosted to the level of a full-fledged Warp god.  
Result: Ebert is successful in shielding the Eldar from Slaanesh's predations. C'tan are exterminated. Khorne is stymied sufficiently to be reduced in power greatly. The Inquisition is growing paranoid about the new type of chaos cult forming. Evidence suggests we are inadvertently strengthening Tzeentch. Isha has been successfully contacted.

* * *

Section 4.1  
(A quick spin through Covviz's fic The Encounter)

* * *

The AARTF Cycle-Breaker **_Mr. Serious _**slip-jumped into a new universe. A stealth probe to one of the few constants through the multiverse (namely the fact that the Sol system had a native population of humans) revealed that the Charon Relay was both present and open. The local humans were using a crude slipspace/wormhole drive instead of Mass Effect FTL, though they could really spend a lot more resources improving it. A few billion stealth probes later (they were about 3 cm long) and most of this Milky Way was mapped, revealing that the local instance of the Geth was far more aggressive than normal, and were attacking the other races. The local version of the Reapers were also located.

First priority was dealing with the Reapers. A quick salvo of Nova Bombs sent to Dark Space along with one to the Collector base resulted in the vast majority of them being destroyed, though a few stragglers such as Sovereign and !#$%ING HARBINGER (who had somehow managed to avoid destruction in any universe so far) were inevitable.

Next, they needed to get the local humans on the technological upswing without handing them their tech on a silver platter. This was solved at least partially by sending them schematics to build a fixed instant-transit wormhole along with some of the knowledge required to expand the principle to their ship engines. Admittedly instant-transit wormholes were faster than slip-jump, but they lacked the range to make intergalactic or inter-universal travel practical. The drop was performed by an agent who said something along the lines of "I find your situation amusing, this is all the Deus Ex Machina I'm giving you." The agent is reprimanded upon return for taunting the locals.

The last problem, the highly aggressive Geth could be solved instantly by a simple re-programming. This was not subtle enough for the Alliance's purposes, and an alternate solution was designed of introducing Virtual Neuron AIs to the Geth consensus to show them that organic-style thought processes could still be useful. This would (coupled with periodic injections of non-aggressive Geth programs) reduce the Geth's aggressiveness to baseline levels over the course of about 11 months.

* * *

Section 4.2  
(Inquisition POV)

* * *

Ever since one instance of Inquisitor Diocletian's highly improbable escape from the strange xenos dubbed 'Outsiders', the entire Inquisition had been becoming increasingly aware of extremely weird occurrences in the Warp. For example there was a brief episode where Nurgle was obsessed with cleanliness to the degree of considering any living tissue an infection. And now there was a new Ruinous Power in play named Ebert. Except Ebert didn't _act_ like a ruinous power, in fact Ebert cults usually worked without lethal sacrifices entirely, only partially draining the cultists involved and allowing them to recover. There was also the fact that Ebert cults typically had direct support by the Outsiders, which wasn't subtle at all.

So far, everything suggested that the Outsiders had deliberately created Ebert. Ebert cults were also rather high visibility, working to improve living conditions for the average Imperial citizen. This suggested that Ebert was either benevolent, or had a far more insidious motive than could be easily detected. Without further information, the Inquisition had decided to support the latter theory.

What was known about the Outsiders was that they had originated in a parallel universe on the other side of the Warp, they had weapons that traveled at superluminal speeds in realspace along with their ships, and they could swap or modify the bodies they inhabited whenever they felt like it. They also had brainwashing capabilities sufficient to temporarily suborn a Ruinous Power. All in all, the Outsiders could probably squish the Imperium if they wanted to, but they weren't for some reason. This suggested that they were trying to reform the Imperium into something else, but the Inquisition had no idea what that was.

* * *

Section 4.3  
Inquisitor Diocletian POV

* * *

This particular instance of Inquisitor Diocletian had been made at the exact instant of Relay transfer. False memories had been fabricated of him being taken aboard a purely human-occupied space habitat and a heavily glossed-over account of the Alliance's history was given to him. The immense divergence in technology was explained by the different universe and the Reaper's trap to Diocletian's satisfaction, and his clandestinely-applied neural interface carefully masked all the inhabitants of the station so that they appeared to be baseline humans to him. In absence of a way to directly serve the Emperor, he had taken up work as a detective until he could secure a spot on a flight back to his home universe.

Then, one day, the veneer slipped. As he slept, the vision filter that made everyone seem to be a baseline human was disabled as an expiriment (with the consent of all those on the station who had the filter disabled for them in particular). This led to some shenanigans when Diocletian's Birth-Salarian, Current-(A)Asari room-mate consented to have the truth of her form shown (though not before hiding Diocletian's gun, dying was painful!). Come morning, Diocletian noted that his room-mate Ohar had apparently gotten out of bed before him.

Diocletian then continued into the kitchen area, where he abruptly saw a blue xeno where Ohar was supposed to be. Diocletian instinctively went for his Bolt pistol even though he knew it wasn't there. That was when Diocletian noticed the xeno (save for the blue skin and the tentacle hair) looked almost exactly like his room-mate Ohar. Upon her saying "Dio, there's no need to freak out." Diocletian noticed that the voice was an exact match as well, and promptly proceeded to black out.

Upon Diocletian's return to conciousness, he noticed the same blue xeno standing over him. Diocletian took the logical conclusion that this entity had the slight possibility of being Ohar. Diocletian decided to test this by asking "What is the mark on my left buttock", which was something Ohar had learned during their frequent... sessions.

When the xeno answered "A mole in the shape of a rude gesture", Diocletian was willing to at least consider that this was Ohar.

As Diocletian got up he asked "Curiously Ohar, how did this sudden transformation occur?"

Ohar's answer of "I was like this before we met, you just didn't notice until now."

This led to Diocletian leaving the room in disgust, at both the xeno that had pretended to be human, and himself for not noticing.

* * *

Section 4.4

That planet Geoffrey crashed on

* * *

Geoffrey knew he would die within the next few years, and had therefore designed and started a line of self-replicating androids to advance this world's technology as fast as possible with his damaged fabrication systems. One of them (going by the name of Desh) was currently overseeing Beroost's new spaceport and had started a conversation with Ugar.

"Desh, I'm worried. "

"Why?"

"What happens if the Reapers come back before we're ready?"

"Then we fight as hard as we can, if that isn't enough, then so be it."


	10. Chapter 10

Due to various things, this story is no longer interesting for me to write. Therefore, I'm going to kill it.

The same goes for Arms Race.

Next Story: something that sees how theoretical science we already understand can be something that utterly trashes the Reaper's plans. Or I'll just use that Alternate Council thingy from the plotbunny adoption service.


End file.
